Our admiration of a famous man lessens upon our nearer acquaintance with him; and we seldom hear of a celebrated person without a catalogue of some notorious weaknesses and infirmities.

The greatest sweetener of human life is Friendship.

What sunshine is to flowers, smiles are to humanity. These are but trifles, to be sure; but scattered along life's pathway, the good they do is inconceivable.

I value my garden more for being full of blackbirds than of cherries, and very frankly give them fruit for their songs.

If you wish to succeed in life, make perseverance your bosom friend, experience your wise counselor, caution your elder brother, and hope your guardian genius.

Cheerfulness is the best promoter of health and is as friendly to the mind as to the body.

Three grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love, and something to hope for.

Sunday clears away the rust of the whole week.

No one is more cherished in this world than someone who lightens the burden of another. Thank you.

The voice of reason is more to be regarded than the bent of any present inclination; since inclination will at length come over to reason, though we can never force reason to comply with inclination.

Ridicule is generally made use of to laugh men out of virtue and good sense, by attacking everything praiseworthy in human life.

Old religious dogma attempts to convince you that you are on a journey to God, then makes you pay tolls along that roadway.

But because many endeavor to get knowledge rather than to live well, they are often deceived and reap little or no benefit from their labor.

You don’t think – not possibly – not as a mere hundredth chance – there might be things that are real though we can’t see them? … If there are souls, could there not be soul-houses?

You can always find an evolutionary quotation for anything. But the question is whether it's functional, which is not the same as being evolutionary.

Every time you reject yourself, you idealize others

I love men who have a lot going on in their lives, like I do.

What you already know is merely a good departure point.

I've done an informal, anecdotal survey about marriage, and I've found no evidence that it brings happiness.

A theoretical system does not merely state facts which have been observed and that logically deducible relations to other facts which have also been observed.

It is those books which a man possesses but does not read which constitute the most suspicious evidence against him.